Treasures in Heaven - Pt. 2

Sermon Introduction

Last week, we began this short sermon series by looking at Matthew 6:19-24

We learned that the larger context of that passage from last week is the Sermon on the Mount, which is Jesus’ main teaching about ethics

And if you’ll remember, I mentioned that if I could choose just one verse from the Sermon on the Mount to summarize the whole thing, I would choose Matthew 6:33 “33 But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”

Similarly then, our passage from last week, which contained Jesus’ teaching about possessions taught us in...

Matthew 6:19–21 “19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Now, it didn’t tell us specifically how to do this… how to lay up treasures in heaven, but the following verses gave us a hint by contrasting Stinginess and Jealousy, with Generosity...

Matthew 6:22–23 “22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23 but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”

Understanding these two verses, remember, hinges of understanding this first century Greek idiomatic phrase, “your eye is bad”...

It means to be jealous or to be stingy...

Thus, “your eye is healthy” is essentially the opposite of that, which is of course by being generous...

Finally, Jesus reinforces verses 19 to 23 by bringing in the idea of idolatry… He in...

Matthew 6:24 “24 “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”

So, we are called to lay up our treasures in heaven because where our treasures are, there our hearts will be also… The way to do that is through generosity… and the effect it has for us is to help us in avoiding idolatry...

Giving to the Church

Now, I needed to provide you with that recap because our sermon for today is a continuation of last weeks…

Not only in the sense that it is part of the same sermon series, or the same topic...

But in effect, our sermon today is in effect the main application point of last week’s sermon.

I mentioned it already last week… one of main purposes of this series is to provide you teaching about tithes and offering...

In other words, giving to the church.

And I’ll be honest with you, it is not exactly an easy topic to preach about...

Uncomfortable

First of all, because for me personally, it’s just uncomfortable...

When I was in university, I changed jobs quite often… Because I had a very steady summer job with the city of Toronto...

Unfortunately, what that meant was that I could only work a job from September-April or so, then I would have to quit that job so that I could go back to my summer job with the city...

Now, that did mean that I got to do some pretty interesting work…

For example, I got to work at Roy Thomson Hall…

Which is one of the locations for the Toronto Film Festivals, which also meant that I got to see celebrities whose movies we were screening...

That was also my first experience teaching English as a Foreign Language… I worked for this English school in Korea, where the kids would go in to the school for their lesson, and then they would have a lesson with a native English teacher by phone…

So that was me for about 8 months, I was waking up every morning at 5am, calling Korean kids and teenagers to do their 10 minute lesson...

But, by far the worst job that I had in university… was actually working for University of Toronto during my 2nd year, which started in September 2006...

The department I worked in was “Alumni Relations”. Which is really just code for calling graduates of the Univerisity and… asking them for money...

I remember the very first campaign I worked on was for the renovations of Convocation Hall, which is this massive hall in the middle of UofT, which seats like 2000 people...

And this campaign was to renovate hall and commemorate its 100th anniversary… which was going to be celebrated a year later in 2007...

And so we were asking alumni to donate 1,907 dollars...

Which is of course the year Con Hall was built...

Suffice it to say, I didn’t get any 1,907 dollar donations… And I hated the job so much, I only last one semester.. I started in September and I had already resigned by Christmas...

So, yes, preaching about giving for me… and probably for many pastors out there… is personally uncomfortable.

And I’m pretty sure that it can be quite uncofortable for many of you as well...

Personal Finances is kind of one of those taboo topics that really shouldn’t be brought up in polite conversation right?

However, giving is in scripture, and as you will see soon enough, it is an important spiritual discipline… and so it needs to be addressed in Church.

Potential for Abuse

There is a second reason why it isn’t an easy topic to preach on however, and that is because of the potential for abuse...

Many of you have probably heard of this thing called the “Prosperity Gospel”.

For those of you who are not really familiar… despite the name the “Prosperity Gospel” is really not the Gospel, obviously…

In fact, it is one of the most insidious perversions of Gospel of Jesus Christ that our modern society canh come up with...

I’ll just keep using the term “Prosperity Gospel”, so we don’t get confused… even though I absolutely hate calling it that, and I absolutely despise just about everything to do with it...

So, what is it?

Well, here is a great definition by a theologian named Stephen Hunt:

In the forefront (of the Prosperity Gospel) is the doctrine of the assurance of “divine” physical health and prosperity through faith. In short, this means that “health and wealth” are the automatic divine right of all Bible-believing Christians and may be procreated by faith as part of the package of salvation, since the Atonement of Christ includes not just the removal of sin, but also the removal of sickness and poverty.

That’s what the Prosperity Gospel preaches… if you are a true believer in Christ, you will be health, wealthy and you will prosper...

Now, I’m sure you can already discern that this is problematic… And I do want to get to the point of how preaching on giving has a potential for abuse...

So I’ll just leave to John MacArthur to give us, what is probably best succinct explanation for why the Prosperity Gospel is so bad...

This is satanic - this is satanic. This is not just off-centered, this is satanic. Why do I say that? Because health, wealth, prosperity, the fulfillment of all your dreams and your desires, that’s what Satan always offers. That’s called temptation, based on the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. That’s exactly what corrupt, fallen, unregenerate people want.

You can’t get any clearer than that… The Prosperity Gospel is not just a perversion of the Gospel of Jesus Christ

But this message that Jesus Christ died on the cross so that you can be rich and healthy… is satanic. It is downright evil.

So what does this have to do with giving, and the potential for abuse when preaching about giving?

Well because one of the things that prosperity preachers do is to manipulate people into giving...

They preach that giving to the church is how people activate that divine assurance of health, wealth and prosperity...

Then what do they do? Well, they live the rich and wealthly lifestyle…

In order to provide further proof that their “system” works… they live in multi-million dollar mansions and travel in private jets...

Do you know how many so called pastors have private jets? Well, 1 is already 1 too many… But just to give you a sample...

Pat Robertson, is probably one of the more famous TV Evangelist, some of the young ones here may not be so familiar with him, but he hosted this really famous Christian TV show called The 700 Club… he had a LearJet 35 that would have cost about 1 million dollars to buy.

Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer, Kenneth Copeland… just about every prosperity gospel televangelist has a private jet...

But this one really takes the cake… this last one most of you I’m sure are familiar with… Joel Osteen has an Airbus A319 as a private jet… Think about that for a second… he has an airliner for a private jet like he’s Donald Trump or soemthing… a A319 costs a minimum of 50 million dollars to buy...

These so-called pastors manipulate people into giving to their so-called ministries… And then live a lavish lifestyle to further manipulate people into giving them even more money...

That’s the potential for abuse in preaching about giving… These heretics prey on the sinful desire of people to be wealthy in order to enrich themselves...

Here’s the thing though...

There is truth in what they preach...

Now let me be clear.. obviously, I’m not saying that what they preach is true...

However, they do use truth in their preaching… It is distorted truth, of course… It is manipulative…

But, it is truth nonetheless...

Consider for example one of the more common verse that prosperity preachers use...

Luke 6:38 “38 ...give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.””

Simple message, right? How generous you are with your giving determines how much you receive… You will receive how much you give… and then some...

Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap...

Must be true, right? It’s in the Bible!

Here’s the problem… this has nothing to do with giving money… Notice I have those three dots… at the beginning of the verse, and notice that it is a lower case g, not capital… meaning, this was a continuation from the previous verses...

And when you look at that, the true meaning of this verse becomes evident...

Luke 6:36–38 “36 Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful. 37 “Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven; 38 give, and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap. For with the measure you use it will be measured back to you.””

What does this verse teach us to give so that we receive it back until it runs over...

Mercy… Forgiveness..

This verse has nothing to do with material wealth...

Now, this is a particularly eggregious example distorting the truth of scripture in order to spiritualy manipulate people into giving to the church

And the trouble is that this may make people suspicious when pastors talk about giving...

Which is really sad...

Because the truth of the matter is that Christians really are expected to give and be generous...

What matters is the motivation behind that giving and generosity...

We’ve already seen the wrong motivation in health, wealth and prosperity preaching...

So let’s turn, then to the correct motivation...

Which is intricately connected to what tithes and offering is to begin with...

Tithes and Offering

And for a basic definition of what Tithes and Offering is, there are two common verses that people turn to...

The first one is… Leviticus 27:30 “30 “Every tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees, is the Lord’s; it is holy to the Lord.”

As you can see, this scripture is very important for us because it contains one of the terms that we use...

Tithe… Which basically means 10%...

Leviticus 27:30 requires that 10% of what the people of Israel produces must be given to the Lord...

Now, the important thing to note about this scripture though, is that it is from Leviticus… meaning, that it is part of the Mosiac Law...

Which means that we are no longer subject to it…

As Jesus says in Matthew 5:17 “17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”

So, Jesus already fulfilled the Mosaic Law, which is then further interpreted by Paul in Romans 10:4 to mean that we are no longer subject to it... “4 For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.”

So, to be clear, it is not a law for us like it was for ancient Israelites… It is not a requirement for us…

Rather, it is a principle for us to follow for our good and God’s glory...

That principle is that we give 10% of our income to the church...

Here’s the next question then, what income? Because we in Canada know all too well that what we get isn’t really what we get… Why?

Because we have taxes of course… If my salary is $4000 per month… I don’t actually get $4000… I actually get something closer to… $3,400… That is the difference between Gross and Net income...

Now, I know that’s a strange thing to begin talking about… but the fact is, there is a principle for that too… which is from the second most commonly used verse about tithing, which is...

Proverbs 3:9 “9 Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce;”

So, the key word for this is… The “First Fruits”.

Which of course means the first thing that they produce...

In other words, Israelites are expected to tithe from the very first things they they produce...

In general, how we interpret this for us now who are not under the law.. the principle thst we derive from it, is that we also should tithe from the very first thing that we get...

Which I know of course is difficult, because for us before we even get anything things are already deducted...

CPP, EI, Provincial Tax, Federal tax…

But the principle is basically that we ought to be giving from our Gross income, not Net...

So those are the two most common scriptures from where we draw the principles of tithing...

And again, these are not requiure of us because these are from the Mosaic Law, and the Old Testament, which Jesus has already fulfilled...

MORE TITHES: Deuteronomy 14:22-27, a second tithe for the cost of the festivals and religious ceremonies

OFFERING: Deuteronomy 14:28-29… Giving to the poor

Our Good and His Glory

We are not commanded to give to God… The proper motivation to tithe… Is for our good and God’s glory...

EVERTYHING IS ALREADY GOD’S

Psalm 24:1–2 “1 The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof, the world and those who dwell therein, 2 for he has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.”

Romans 11:34–36 “34 “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” 35 “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” 36 For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.”

WHY IS THIS IMPORTANT?

Reorders our priorities: Matthew 6:21 “21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Provides for the work of the church: Malachi 3:10 “10 Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.”

For YOU and Pour down for YOU… Sounds like prosperity. But it is PLURAL

Acts 4:34–35 “34 There was not a needy person among them, for as many as were owners of lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold 35 and laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.”

Final ILUSTRATION

Luke 21:1–4 “1 Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, 2 and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. 3 And he said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. 4 For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.””

COPPER COIN = 1 / 128 of a Denarius, which is 1 wage

About $2.